With the increased popularity of instant messaging and other forms of synchronous and asynchronous on-line collaboration and communication, the contact lists (e.g. instant messaging buddy lists, electronic address books, etc.) provided by such systems to their users are becoming difficult to manage. Contact lists in existing systems can become very long. Contacts added to a contact list can be categorized in many different ways, often resulting in overlapping group memberships. All these factors ultimately make it difficult for users of existing system to quickly find the people they need to communicate with.
It would accordingly be desirable to have a new system for searching a contact list that enables a communication system user to quickly find relevant contacts for a communication.